"I may be changing my mind about how well Labour are playing this. The Gateshead speech where Corbyn was emphasising all the other things that matter apart from Brexit is not a bad foundation for a potential manifesto. That the Tories own the chaos of Brexit and Labour is focusing on job security, education, the NHS and other bread-and-butter issues could be a good position to be in."

"I may be changing my mind about how well Labour are playing this." I said some time ago that Corbyn was either attempting to appease his own Brexiteers to keep his supporters on top or was dithering - my continuing faith in him depended on which was My hope is that you are right - we don't want another Tory party that calls itself 'Labour' Jim

I may be changing my mind about how well Labour are playing this. The Gateshead speech where Corbyn was emphasising all the other things that matter apart from Brexit is not a bad foundation for a potential manifesto. That the Tories own the chaos of Brexit and Labour is focusing on job security, education, the NHS and other bread-and-butter issues could be a good position to be in.

"It can hardly be said that Labour are playing a blinder in all this."

'All this' is the result of Conservatives, beginning with CaMoron, and ending with the bunch of scrotes in charge now, putting party before country.

They started it, they've kept everyone else out so that they could have it all their own way, so they should be left to deal alone with the results of their ill-deeds. The Labour Party should steer well clear of having any involvement whatsoever in this cataclysmic balls-up, as should all the other parties.

Just put it up on the other thread The Sunday Times has erported that not only is Parliament unable to agree on a way forward but the splits in the Cabinet make it totally unable to act as a Governing body Next step - send in the army to Govern Britain Jim

It seems that this disaster of a prime minister is trying again to bully her deal through, this time by insinuating that she might call an election if she doesn't succeed. Well that'll be another Commons vote she'll lose if she tries that one on. She needs a two-thirds majority before she can call an election. Labour may say yes but a huge wodge of Tories and the breakaway group will say no. I think an election would be a terrible idea. Assuming that it would happen during a longer extension, it would be fought on a single issue. Both major parties' hands would be tied in the campaign for fear of alienating the public via any sniff of a suggestion that "democracy is being betrayed" or " the will of the people is being ignored." It would quite likely give us another hung parliament and, worse still, as far as brexit is concerned we'd be back to square one. I think the Labour leadership know this, and have only been bellyaching for an election from the luxurious position of knowing that she can't or won't call one. It can hardly be said that Labour are playing a blinder in all this.

An outbreak of racism by a Brexit supporter denying that racism has anything to do with Brexit - you couldn't make it up !!! Someone needs to tell Robinson or Farage that their plant needs watering Jim Carroll

Channel 4 has had to apologise because Jon Snow remarked that the pro-Brexit demonstrations that he had ‘never seen so many white people.' The channel clarified in its apology that "Jon has covered major events such as this over a long career and this was a spontaneous comment reflecting his observation that in a London demonstration of that size, ethnic minorities seemed to be significantly under-represented."

It will be interesting to see if the charge of under-representation is challenged in its turn. I would guess not.

"The one thing the general public is absolutely clear about is that most want he media to stop talking about Brexit all the time." Surely the most dangerous aspect of this whole dirty business is that it was pushed though on a single issue - control of immigration If the subject is re-voted on without open discussion on all the aspects of leaving the public will be no clearer than they are now - an extremely dangerous position to be in It is very significant that two of the main speakers at Friday's protest demonstration were Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson and several of the demonstrators, when asked where they got their information from replied, from Robinson's website Scum like this pair need to be taken out of this debate - both have infringed British law in spirit - one has been prosecuted for doing so Jim Carroll

I'll put that a different way. The one thing the general public is absolutely clear about is that most want he media to stop talking about Brexit all the time. Only revocation achieves this. (OK, it may take a month or two to fall off the news but not years or decades like either deal or no-deal)

That is an interesting set of poll results. I can't find the details but looking at other polls the margin of error is around 2% for other sky polls, so the option of revoking is well within shouting distance of continuing with either a deal or no-deal. The very large unknowns makes thie actual wishes indecipherable.

. I believe it would be perfectly possible to get a huge vote in favour of revocation by preceding the survey with an accurate statement like this:

We are nearing completion of the first phase of the Brexit negotiations, the withdrawal agreement. The next phase will involve negotiating our continuing relationship with the EU and other countries. Such negotiations have typically taken seven years or more, and will be unavoidable for either deal or no-deal.

What has become totally clear from the latest statements by politicians is that they are putting into place a plan that if/when Britain leaves the EU, everything that will inevitably go wrong will be put squarely at the feet of the General public "We only did what you told us to do" Of course they will take the credit if things aren't as bad as is predicted. The constant claim that the only democratic thing is to go plunging over the cliff - "the people's choice" has become a solid part of the creation of that 'Get out of Jail Free' card' The people will not only be the victims of this lemming-leap, but the cause of it Jim Carroll

Results for: Do you think parliament should accept or reject the proposal that the UK revokes Article 50 and remains in the EU? Fieldwork end date Pollster 27 March 2019 Poll by Sky DataAccept 37% Reject 41% Don't know 22%

There is a story in the Guardian that sounds like could reach a new crescendo in absurdity, naturally going back to Cameron. It seems like one of May's ideas is to call a snap election to prevent a no deal. But to do that she needs a two-thirds majority in the house and there are sufficient no-deals to make that very risky, since they would far rather stay in government with a Brexiteer at the helm. Why risk a Corbyn government ?

So her only option would be to call a no confidence vote in herself and her own government since that only requires a simple majority, not a two-thirds one. When she call it, to maximise the chances of losing (ie getting what she wants) she and her loyalists would have to declare themselves incompitent. But since the rest of the Tories would still not want to risk losing their seat she could even lose that.

And so we end up with the same PM and government even though she and many of them say they are incompetent....

The leftards response to Dominic Grieve being held to account by his constituency party as exemplified by Phil Wilson who said the vote was "ridiculous", adding: "I'm not of the same politics as Grieve but to deselect him as a Conservative candidate is to diminish politics, see an end to political integrity and deprive politics of a sincere and thoughtful practitioner."

Grieve’s arrogance was that he thought he could shift from promising his members – in writing – that he would respect the outcome of the referendum, to leading the efforts to thwart Brexit, without cost. Breaking your word to voters, particularly the ones who get out the vote for you, is risky.

or as another wit says:Dominic Grieve said in the Commons a few days ago he had never been so ashamed to be a Tory.

Last night, his local Conservative party voted that they were ashamed to have Dominic Grieve as their MP.

Should be the quickest case ever through the divorce courts if both sides are that fed up with one another !!

Douglas Carswell states it very well:

“If Dom Grieve is a brilliant MP like other MPs are claiming, he’d have no qualms about calling a snap by election and getting a mandate directly from his electorate. You’ve only got to put it like that to realise that he’s just another safe seat MP with tenure."

It begins to look as though we have an entire party(/parliament) that believes it can sit in "tenure". If nothing else, the Brexit vote has exposed this perilous state, and it can’t be sustained.

"I know it is hard to admit that some people are not wholly driven by self-interest, but they do exist." You can immediately spot the self interest crowd by whether or not they are likely to lose money out of the move - most of us are, those in the position to, like Dyson and Rees Mogg can push Brexit through and do a runner with teir investments - as both have

I always find it fascinating why Brexiteers refuse to respond to this fact (I refuse to believe all of them are lemmings by instinct) Another fact being studiously ignored

The leaver's policy has now become perfectly clear - leave whatever the consequences and when the shit starts flying, blame the people for making the wrong decision

No, there are plenty throughout history and quite a few I have known personally.

I have told a story before in other contexts about one of my supervisors who was offered a position as general manager of a company, which was a very significant promotion. The offer included a copy of the assessment criteria so he went through it answering them not as he felt, but giving what he believed the answers they would most want, then looked at them and said to himself "Is that the sort of person I want to be?" He decided it wasn't, so turned it down without formally applying.

I find that admirable, whether or not I think he would have made an excellent general manager (which he would have, in my opinion.) I regret 'the waste' of his talent, but not his determination to be true to his own standards.

The game is far from over. First the House has to agree on something, then they have to find a way of getting the PM to put that forward. Suppose, for the sake of argument they agree on some form of customs union. Teresa May takes that back to the EU and says that is the will of the House, and the EU grants a year's extension. May resigns and let's say Rabb becomes PM.

So we move from what Leavers claim is a Remainer trying to negotiate Leave, to a hard line ERG PM trying to negotiate a close union. I can see that working well.

Remain MP Dominic Grieve suffers no confidence vote from his local constituency party.Colleagues of the Conservative MP and former minister have branded the vote in his constituency as "disgraceful". The more sensible would see it as a payback. I wonder how many others face de-selection on both sides of the house. Treachery brings it's own rewards! Now the real battle begins.

"...and Jim didn't get my joke... :-(" Sorry 'bout that Steve I was indulging in a large celebratory glug of English beer which, unfortunately, can only be got in bottles here - god - how I miss Young's Ordinary !!! Jim

Well, at least there's a bit of good news about Brexit - we didn't leave today the way the BrexShit-lemmings had hoped. With any luck, sanity will prevail and the whole lunatic escapade will be kicked into touch for good.

So, a poorly understood plebiscite, a rotten decision, an amazing amount of obfuscation all round, there is no walking away from the brink?

That plank gotta be walked?

That bitter pill gotta be swallowed?

That last chord gotta be played even when the string is broke?

That last bit of programming gotta be included in the final product even though the commenting was unclear, the subroutine was written by that weird kid with the actual safety pin in his cheek, and the beta test indicated that many users were showing an inclination to take the DVD installment disk and use it a a frisbee for the dog?

"Her deal was a load of b***llo**cks, Jim. Total sh***te." Of course it was - why should it be any different from everything connected with this catastrophe ? As bad as it was, the alternatives are far, far worse, to Britain and to Ireland Britain has been shedding bompanies faster than a stripper shrows her knickers into the crowd - even financial backers of Brexit are rapily moving their businesses elsewhere One of the most persistent maritime superstitions is that of rats leaving a sinking ship The people who are re-siting their businesses are in a win-win situation - they still profit from Britain while pouring their profits into other counties - as usual, it's us that will take the brunt of this farce - we are now - promoted to road-crash dummies Ireland stands to have its businesses badly damaged, but most worrying, if Britain crashes out without a deal there is a serious risk that decades of negotiation to reach peace will be flushed down the pan I have not time for any form of capitalism, but I'd rather see the world freed from it out of choice rather than necessity brought about by war and want Despite al the EU's undeniable flaws Id rather try then that the alternative Ther same goes fro May, by the way - would you want your daughter to bring Boris Johnson home ? Frigged if I would At least May recognises the dangers of crashing out "Put-Your Money-Elswhere Quickly" Moggie sees only the personal profits in leaving Europe - sod the sinking ship and all who sink in her Jim

By the way, Jim, "a**s" can't just be "arse" with the 'e' missing. Too many **s for that. Unless it's the Scottish pronunciation in which you roll your 'r's, in which case you could conceivably spell it "arrse." But it's more commonly rendered "erse" or "errse" in my experience.

Roll your 'r's? Roll your arse?? God, I'm confused...

Dave, you can even roll an axis...

And I note the the Commons has just given Theresa a well-deserved kick up the 'arris...

Great street scene before Parliament today of extremist Brexiteers like Lord Snooty admitting that even if they vote for any of the proposals todaythey don't agree the terms they will be supporting Utterly insane national suicide which will only please the worst of the narrow-minded keep-'em-outers Jim Carroll

Great street scene before Parliament today of extremist Brexiteers like Lord Snooty admitting that even if they vote for any of the proposals todaythey don't agree the terms they will be supporting Utterly insane national suicide which will only please the worst of the narrow-minded keep-'em-outers Jim Carroll

"Nice to see you BTW." Never went far Dave - why waste a good forum with light entertainment such as this over a few bad experiences ? You'd have to pay a great deal to get into a circus that offers clowns as entertaining as this one Jim

Obviously I hate Murdoch and The Sun (especially as a Liverpool fan), but if I may be allowed a moment of levity deep in this vale of tears I'd like to draw attention to today's Sun front page, which, referring to "Brexy's Midnight Runners," follows with the headline COME ON ARLENE

(Seen online, by the way. I'd rather hack off my gonads with a rusty machete than pay money for that despicable rag, but I've gotta applaud that headline writer).

Let's hope that is no more than nervousness and it all comes to nothing. But it will be a big contrast to the Leave march with 1,000,000 or so attendees if it does happen. Both sides are disappointed at the outcome, but their response could be very different.